A Venue to Market Your Books on Facebook for FREE

By Annette Cole Mastron, Communications Director for Southern Writers Magazine 

River City is lucky to have Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, an art museum founded in 1916. It is the oldest and largest art museum in the state of Tennessee. A recent exhibition was outdoor art that uniquely used a common item in most households, painter's tape. The exhibit called "Tape Art" created art on the outside facade of the museum. 

Artist Michael Townsend said “We are making a really lovely artwork that tells a compelling story and includes as characters women players, culled from the museum’s permanent collection." It was totally personalized to the art housed at Brooks. 

What does this have to do with authors? Facebook has a slideshow feature. Did you know? It turns your photos into a slideshow video complete with music. Slideshow, takes your cell phone photos and turns them into a short clip. I’m sure you’ve seen this on your News Feed. All you have to do is tap “try it” and upload the pictures of your choice. Just have five or more pictures taken at the same time and hit “try it.”  On Tuesday, in 3 minutes when the “Try It” button appeared and suggested doing a Slideshow of my “Tape Art” pictures, I tried it. I was pleased to notice the pictures loaded into a professional presentation set to music. I was amazed at the results.

This experiment on Facebook started me to thinking what a fantastic tool this could be for all authors. Instead of just listing your books with links on various Facebook pages, try this option using pictures of your books, your website or maybe the first page of your book. If you are working on your first book, take some pictures of your writing space to create interest. If you're running a book contest or getting reader feedback on book cover selections, this would be a great venue to consider. Right now, it's free and should pop up on your newsfeed if you take 5 or more pictures in a row. 

Let me know if you try it and post your link in the comments so everyone can see your slideshow. The best part is that it's free to do this on Facebook.